Microsoft told a European Union court on Monday that regulators had completely misunderstood thriving competition in the software market in issuing a landmark antitrust ruling against the giant U.S. company. But an internal Microsoft memo presented by a coalition of critical companies suggested founder Bill Gates was told that a strategy used to crush the rival Netscape browser could also take down the leader in streaming media, RealNetworks' RealPlayer.

Why in god's name would you want a world where laws do not apply equally?

But laws don't apply equally in *many* situations.

If you are a felon (that is, you've been convicted of a felony crime) in the US, there are certain rights that are taken away from you because of that conviction.

Companies can discriminate against you when hiring, for example, and you no longer have the same right to bear arms that your unconvicted neighbor might have.

The same thing exists for those who reach a certain legally recognized level of control in a given marketplace.

If the courts formally recognize you as having a monooly position, some of the rules change because of your dominant position, and a company which decides to act in violation of the laws anyway can find itself subject to all kinds of problems (as Microsoft is now finding).

>> Nice misapplication of a quote, by the way...
No, it's a spot on application of the quote, since it's from when he commented on Hamiltons trying to prosecute the state of Massachusetts for having it's own state bank instead of using the newly formed central bank... When Virginia and Maryland also had their own state run banks.

I'll see your John Adams and raise you a Thomas Jefferson (emphasis mine):

"I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations."